Do not read if you have a weak stomach

So, I had lunch today with my friend J. Her x-husband recently 'came out'.

(The following blog entry is full of really gross references so hide the children and say a prayer)

Can you be married to someone and still have children and still not be heterosexual? Perhaps you WERE hetero and are NOT now?

I'm writing about it because I just can't get it out of my head. I hope to share the nightmares with you-- because it is best to not dream alone !

Of course, I'm discussing this with anyone who would listen and I've collected data. Because I'm grossly fascinated, like a car wreck.

So to make a checklist, if you will, of what I've learned.

• Heterosexual men routinely do not like to have items inserted into them during sex.
• Heterosexual men enjoy performing oral sex on women.
• Heterosexual men generally avoid anal sex with women.
• Heterosexual men really enjoy fellatio, and if your husband doesn't fully 'enjoy' -even though you try for years -- it isn't your lack of skills.
• Heterosexual men do not include talk of sex with other men and insertion of said items in 'dirty talk' during sex.

(DUDE! I thought there were some freaky things in this life, but whoa...and what does it say about me that I never thought up a list of things that makes one hetero or not....so naive!)

Please don't comment that you like those things and are still decidedly hetero-- I checked with a few Marines. They say they are the full measure of manly manliness and they approve the checklist. Also, I don't want to know what you like. I just want you to cringe and laugh. Then go about your merry life.

(He even had a HUGE penchant for hetero porn, not GAY porn, hetero porn!)

A wise old uncle of mine said, "If it smells like cologne leave it alone, if it smells like fish, eat all you wish."

Of course, I laughed me behind off.....'cause I can't even imagine.

So back to J's' husband. He was a perfectly normal guy to everyone. His appearance is always impeccable. He's smart and funny and generally acted in every external way like any hetero man. Except, he really wasn't into sports--- that can't possibly make you gay, could it? (LMAO)

Then, as J started to tell folks they split up, they all giggle a little and ask if he's gay. And they all wonder out loud what they were doing together in the first place. Looking back, I guess I thought they were oddly matched, but they were fun and interesting, so the rest wasn't my business. (but oh my God the father of your children isn't even your 'type' that is effed up on so many levels! Dude, whatever happens in your bedroom, not my business -- blocking my ears! humming!! OUT LOUD!)

Keep Jessica and her ex and their children in your prayers. I can't imagine how she feels being fooled all these years (or just being blind and stupid). But I think she feels good about the truth being out and all the dots being connected. (Yes, I changed J's initial , but I'm pretty sure you don't know her or her ex, so don't try-- no, she's never worked with me!)

Makes me feel better about my life, that's for sure! ;-)

Dear my soon to be ex

My way of dealing with you is to try to avoid all contact with you, except when it comes to the boys. Since you refuse to seek any kind of counseling or education, there is nothing I can do to help you understand these boundaries.

It is perfectly normal for a 3 year old child to choose their mother. As their father, you need to act like a father and stop calling me because you can't deal with him. He is your son and he loves you and this is how he tests you.

I'm sorry you found out about Karateboy's science experiment on the blog. In every conversation, no matter how innocuous, no matter the holiday, you some how work into every conversation that I ruined our family.

But since you're unemployed again, you've got plenty of time to read my blog. Frankly, I'm flattered. Really, but go away. My deepest thoughts aren't your business. Remember how you found my blog? I let you in the house to spend time with your kids and you went snooping around on my laptop.

So please, set the rules for talking about the kids, I'll e-mail you once a day or something. Tell me what you want. But I can't keep talking to you if that's your chance to take pot shots at me.

The Death Pool

First James Brown, now Gerald Ford!! Who is next, Betty White?

Seriously, G-Man has it on GOOD authority it will be Elizabeth Taylor. How sad. Yep, I'm over that now.

So, I googled 'death pool' figuring I wasn't the only one thinking about this...and the results are fascinating---scary but fascinating!

The Stiffs doesn't mention Liz. Neither does The Rotten Dead Pool, although the latter has some names I could get behind. Jerry Lewis, Billy Grahm, Courtney Love....

My favorite death pool URL is http://deadpool.isfullofcrap.com; I'm saddened to know that someone has already registered the 'isfullofcrap' domain. DARN! Though, still no Liz, and no Betty for that matter. Brooke Astor, but after the whole pee-soaked couch incident, one can't help but snicker and wish her well.

Even funnier though are the google ads that display next to my search for 'wrongful death' lawyers.

Either way, we all secretly think these things come in threes, I have my wish list, but I'd never, ever publish it here! Who do YOU think is next?

How GMan Tried to Kill Me

Yes, he delivers tea and does most household chores on a moment's notice....and he's not even MY husband (thanks to The Maven for sharing)

However, it is the laughing that gets me every time. Both C-Sections--- who are the most devoted friends on the plant that show up first to visit after the blessed event? G-Man and The Maven. What does G-Man do?

He tries to kill me. With laughter.

Same with gall bladder surgery. Who checks on me? G-Man and the jokes start rolling.

Christmas Eve, 2006. I've had a little champagne and lobster...I'm already on a giddy sugar-alcohol-seafood high. G-Man starts cracking the jokes. It was hot in the kitchen, and my side (site of said surgery) started to hurt. Then my ears started to ring. Then I could feel the color drain from my face and my stomach completely flip over?

Why? Because I'm laughing too freakin' hard to breathe.

I had to go outside into the cool winter air and put my head between my knees to recover.

Who follows me outside to check on me? The ever-present G-Man, sent by the lovely Maven. So I laughed harder.

Then he blew on the back of my neck to cool me down......and I was all better.

With friends like these, I need a lot lot more pain medication!

My Main Man

No offense to Tippytornado, but Karateboy and I share a special relationship. Of course, Tippy and I do, too, it is just different.

We tried to do a Christmas card picture with the boys in matching sweaters. Tippy wanted no part of it. The result, however, is a lovely collage or movie, really of the event, and Karateboy and I interacting.

I get weepy looking at it. I love being a mom.

Check it out yourself: picasaweb.google.com/ZGI.Photographs/Wen_Christmas

If it begins with 'B'

So, you know I had my gall bladder out. (A shout out to The Maven, who had her surgery just this morning.)

The surgery was December 7. I have tried with all my being to heal faster than anyone and get back to being me--- and with all the best intentions, it hasn't worked.

Three weeks later, I'm feeling more like me, but still a little pained. Especially the spots on my stomach where I reacted to the band aid adhesive.

So, standing in the bathroom this morning after my shower. Looking at the resulting red burns in the mirror. Karateboy appears.

(pointing to the two incisions on my right side that are about 2 inches apart from one another just above my waistline) "Looks like my boo boos are healing, don't you think?"

Karateboy says, "They look like boobies, Mommy."

I stifle my laughter as he lifts up his shirt points to his own little boy nipples and proceeds to explain out the little, swollen cuts look like his bumpy parts and the red circles (they were round band aids) look the same, too!

Unable to breathe, much less respond I stammered, "yes they do look alike, now pull your shirt down!"

Never a dull day. I was hoping to get maybe a 'yes it looks better' or at the very least a kiss for my boo boos. But laughing my ass of first thing in the morning isn't a bad way to start the day!

I thought I was done!

I thought I was done potty training.

The chair and accessories-- hardly used-- were in the garage.

Until Tommy came into our lives.

See, Santa thought it was a great idea for the famous Baby Ryan (that Tippytornado is so attached to) grow up. 'Cause it was getting to the nieghbors that the 3 year old had a baby doll. So Santa brought a longer-haired, toothy Cabbage Patch doll.

Rather than rename him Ryan (thereby dropping the baby and creating a second entity-- Baby Ryan, meet regular Ryan!) Dominic wanted to name him Tommy-- after the most famous Power Ranger of all.

Of course I gagged a bit, having recently had a not-so-pleasant experience recently with a friend by the same name, but also got a little weepy that my innocent sweet baby pumpkin is ALL BOY. He carries his Matchbox cars in the stroller under hte baby and names his new friend after Tommy. Tommy the Power Ranger who grew up to be a Palentologist, and leader/mentor of the Dino Thunder Power Rangers. Stop laughing that I know these things. Welcome to my world.

Now he's potty training Tommy because I told him he'd better get him underwear 'cause I wasn't buying diapers for a doll. So back out comes the baby stuff. At least there won't be anything gross to clean up.

We spent today in our jammies, and Karateboy has often proclaimed this is 'The Best Christmas Ever' !!! Even though he didn't get the Transformer thingy he wanted, he wore his roller blades all day (it is raining outside here).

So, I'm crawling back under a blanket to suck a few more hours of doing nothing out of the day. Debating if Karateboy's need to build a hot air balloon out of a basket, birthday candle and a Giant shopping bag is terrorism or science. Either way the little nerd is WAAAY too smart for his own good. A friend said he read that boys from broken homes gravitate toward the sciences.

Whew! And I was worried about drugs, not buring my house down!

Merry Christmas to all!!

Vision Quest

I feel like I've been living at the speed of light and everything in my head is a cloudy mess.

I only have moments of clarity when I'm doing something with the boys, or when someone yells at me and breaks the fog.

I think I go through my days sort of picking up all these little nuggets, and they're just laying around up there. I need to put them away, in a neat and orderly fashion. Then I come out the other side with some new plan or goal or something.

So I think I get the whole idea of the Vision Quest....looking for meaning in all those brain floaties, where there really is no meaning...

I need to LITERALLY get my house in order....I haven't seriously cleaned it in a month...and do the same with my head.

Does any of this make sense? It's a brain foggy sort of day.

Incidentally, Karateboy will be featured in a play later this afternoon at his school as a wolf in some sort of gingerbread boy story. Ah, a star is born!

Butt Juice

Continuing in the great tradition of my life with six year old boys, I'm amused to tell you about Karateboy's performance yesterday as we were leaving for school.

Tippytornado wanted to take Karateboys Spiderman toy to daycare. Karateboy is really not into Tippy touching his stuff. So he began. "

You know, I rub all my toys on my butt, so you probably don't want to touch them.

I'm falling over laughing in the coat closet, trying to to let either of them see me clearly enjoying this very gross and inappropriate conversation. Of course, Karateboy saw me doubled over.

He continued, "I do, really I do. I rub them right down the crack of my butt. I pull up my shirt and I pull down my pants and they're all full of my butt juice....so don't touch them"

First, Tippy could care less about butt juice. He eats ABC gum from the bottom of restaurant tables. He's 3. Get on board. I of course, can't breathe at this point from laughing so hard, which only gives Karateboy incentive to keep on going. Because if I've taught him nothing, it is never to waste a fresh, fertile opportunity to entertain.

Tippy, of course, is beside himself that he can't have Spiderman, and has no clue what all the fuss is about. He counters with, "Peanut, I hope you die." Thanks Jeff Dunham and my soon-to-be-x for bringing that phrase into our ever day lives. I laughed even harder.

I'm not sure how we got to the van or in the van or on with the rest of our day after that one. We are our own reality television program, because you just can't make this stuff up.

Oh Happy Day!

Boy I ended my last post on a low note.

Like the dual personality I have become these days, I'm back up, I believe, for good.

No, really. I know exactly where my heart is. And no one has it but my boys. Thanks Tommy for finally making me hear what everyone else has been telling me. Even though you beat the crap out of some guy at a 7 Eleven for pushing a girl AFTER you'd knocked him unconcious, you're a star in my book.

I was joking that if I could only find a guy I like to be around as much as Karateboy....in a lot of ways that's true.

For example, today...he brought home a present for me. I have to video him telling this story, because something is lost in text, but it went something like this:

This is Karateboy speaking

"Last Friday, I had 30 pawprint points to spend. Not from the Friday before this past Monday, but the Friday before that. Two Fridays ago. (this whole whose on first version of the days of the week keeps going on and on and on-- and we were laughing too hard to stop him)

So, I want to the school store and I said, "How many pawprint points for that ruler"...and it was only 30, but I had 40. So I said, "I bet my mom would like that ring because it matches her coat." And ACTUALLY it does! "

So how lucky am I to have a kid that not only buys important school supplies like rulers, but also important school supplies like rings for his mother--that match my favorite coat. Thank you, God.

Dude, I can see your junk

Sorry, no posts for a while.

It was Thanksgiving, and I came back from PA under the weather. And I hoped if I'd just take it easy, I'd feel better.

On 12/7, I had my gall bladder removed. I am the crankiest sick person there is. I don't know how to be sick. So the literature said 3-5 days for recovery. I knew (overachiever that I am) that I'd be done in 3, because I have to be first in everything. WRONG! There is no first place in surgery.

Mom and I spent the day that will live in infamy in a nice hospital in Baltimore teaching the nurses to knit and generally entertaining the masses. That is where we are happiest.

Except the hospital gowns. A 50ish looking man came wheeling down the hall in his and his junk was hanging over the edge. And there was no place for me to go to get away from it. I was horrified for him, his wife and his family. I said a prayer that his surgery went well, then giggled my ass off when he was around the corner, because I never really will grow up.

I spent several days with my planned, sedentary activities. Tried to go back to work on Tuesday. Wanted to die. Again on Wednesday. Wanted to die. Thursday...finally made it through the day. Ever since, too much pain for the gym but not enough to miss work or take the drugs.

AND I WANT TO GO TO THE GYM BECAUSE I'M ADDICTED TO THE ENDORPHINS!

There. I said it.

The boys? They're sweet as puddin'. No really, Karateboy pushed me around the zoo on Saturday in a wheel chair, and Tippytornado constantly kisses my boo boos and protects my mid section from impact. We didn't do such a bad job with those two.

...and the dating? Kissing frogs and taking names. I think I know where my heart lies, and he's not currently attainable. Maybe that is why my heart lies there so safely.